I'll tell you, this movie is incredibly deep, intelligent, awesome, fun-to-watch, interconnected, mind-tweaking, and insanely thought-out this marvel of a movie actually is. In fact, don't even TRY to understand the whole thing the first time you watch it. It isn't physically POSSIBLE. This movie has so much freakin' content that even the people who claim that I'm wrong, and that they DO get it the first time, are in fact wrong. They don't get it. In fact, I'd bet even I don't get the whole entire thing, in spite of the fact that I've seen it at least ten times. There are whole websites devoted to simply the PHILOSOPHY implied by The Matrix. To be fair, critics have an obligation to be mean and lie and make fun of every single movie. (ok, a bit of an exaggeration). This is why even the most accommidating critics simply musn't be letting their true feelings show through. Either that, or they're asses. To complement the impossible-to-comment-on, blaringly incredible storyline, comes a revolution in visual effects. Larry and Andy have freakin' fired the bar out of a cannon. The technique that bullet-time, from the first movie, suggests, is fully realized in the second installment. Namely, a virtual camera. The scene is completely mapped out on a computer, in three dimensions, allowing absolutely any angle and motion of the view to be manifested. In the burly brawl, a flesh-and-blood camera would have been torn to pieces if it had actually gone through the motions suggested by the virtual camera. Tight, fast turns and swings in slow motion would have required even tighter, faster turns and swings in real-time, to which the real camera is eternally bound. The series was originally designed to be one single story, but it was way too long to put together into one movie. Dude, this movie would have been INCREDIBLE if it was ANIMATED! The story alone would have made it a blockbuster. No, more! Visual effects that were actually invented FOR THIS MOVIE make it stunning to watch. When the second, or especially third, movie is over, you're body will be jittering from adrenaline and sore, and you will have had chills at least two or three times. Your mind will race and scour every frame and you will be addicted to it. Watching it for the second time, you will actually be able to watch it. 